The owner of this Alpine White M3 was introduced to me by a fellow E46 M3 owner at a recent Charlotte Cars&Coffee. After a few conversations, we settled on a time this past weekend to get his car cleaned up for an upcoming M3 get together. Since time was a definite factor, I managed the interior work on Saturday and returned on Sunday to wash/clay/one-step polish the exterior. Between both days, this car took about 14 hours to complete.

Starting in the trunk

Moving inside

Amazing what one 5-year old can do to an interior

Almost got it all

Once again, sunblock applied via 5-year old.

Interior afters:

Returned the following day for a wash

Hard to see but this car had the most contamination and rust blooms of any car I've seen yet. Claying took FOREVER, and really had me wishing for some Iron-X.

Proceeded with taping

Tried capturing some defects, 50/50s and after shots, but it was hard to do on this color, plus my photography skills are sad.

Looks like sanding marks, but the owner didn't know where they would have come from.

The trunk was a carbon Vorsteiner CSL "bootlid" so I took it easy. The paint seemed thin, but my Highline II won't read carbon. So better safe than sorry, I stepped down to 205/tangerine to be safe. Took out most swirls but left some obvious RIDS. Also, from certain angles you could actually see the carbon weave under the paint. Weird.

Afterwards, we pulled the wheels and cleaned them inside and out. Also cleaned the calipers and wheel wells. This is while cleaning the custom-painted calipers. After this, I steamed the wells and applied Hyperdressing.

The exhaust tips were painted, so no steel wool here. Cleaned up as best I could with DG501.

Finally, some after pictures. The better quality ones were taken by the owner!